Copyright 2002 The Buffalo News  
Buffalo News (New York)
February 25, 2002 Monday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE, Pg.B6

LENGTH: 553 words

HEADLINE: PROGRESS TOWARD A FARM BILL

BODY:
This year's expiration of the nation's major agricultural support program and the clout of farm-state congressional representatives ensures the passage of a new Farm Bill, despite the failure of efforts to wean the industry off expensive but narrowly defined crop subsidies. At least a version just passed by the Senate offers hope of improvement.

Unlike a previously passed House version, the Senate's five-year Farm Bill offers more help for small to medium farms and adds some benefits for farming that don't involve just the traditionally subsidized crops of wheat, corn, rice and major grains. There is more hope here for farms in New York and the rest of the Northeast, and more reason for support.

Crunch time will come in the conference committee that seeks to reconcile the Senate approach with a House bill that, for example, lacks any counterpart to the Senate's desired cap on the subsidies growers can receive for row crops like corn and wheat. Given the enormous subsidies to large farmers that have been the norm, there has been an obvious and dire need for more equity.

Let's just say that the generous payouts to farms didn't always hit the mark. Take last year, when subsidies were given to Portland Trailblazer Scottie Pippen ($26,000), media mogul Ted Turner ($190,000) and former Chase Manhattan Bank chairman and heir David Rockefeller ( $146,000).

It's not that there aren't large family farms in need of government assistance. But that need must be legitimate and not designed to merely subsidize the already rich, or prop up a failing business.

The Senate cap likely results from a Web posting late last fall by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington organization lobbying for agricultural policy reform. That organization listed and publicized five years of federal farm subsidies, tracking a flow of tax dollars that did little for smaller-scale farmers or the growers of specialty crops like fruits and vegetables. Once senators got a look at that listing and felt the resulting backlash, they quickly imposed a cap.

The Senate bill's $500 million subsidy program also includes money for dairy farms, offering an estimated $12,410 a year in much-needed relief to the average dairy farmer, which -- along with any help for apple growers -- could prove especially important to New York.

The Senate also included provisions mimicking the Northeast Dairy Compact, a cartel that propped up prices until Congress let it expire in the fall of 2000. Critics contend such props drive up consumer milk prices and destabilize the industry, but the regulation only kicks in when supply drops market prices below a trigger minimum.

Another feature in the bill is a crop insurance program for specialty crops, such as cabbage, onions and cauliflower. That could help preserve farms by taking some of the weather risk out of an already chancy occupation.

Sen. Charles Schumer has spent the past week at town hall-style meetings throughout the state urging farmers to pressure national farm groups to lobby Congress to include dairy, conservation and specialty crop provisions in the final Farm Bill. This portion has to be reconciled with the House bill. It's important that the eventual compromise maintains the initiatives in the Senate version.

LOAD-DATE: February 27, 2002